On The Crown   

connexion with the indictment, if I break into a discussion of
international transactions. For it is the prosecutor who, by assailing the
clause of the decree which states that I do and say what is best, and by
indicting it as false, has rendered the discussion of my whole political
career essentially germane to the indictment; and further, out of the many
careers which public life offers, it was the department of international
affairs that I chose; so that I have a right to derive my proofs also from
that department.

{60} I will pass over all that Philip snatched from us and secured, in the
days before I took part in public life as an orator. None of these losses,
I imagine, has anything to do with me. But I will recall to you, and will
render you an account of all that, from the day when I entered upon this
career, he was _prevented_ from taking, when I have made one remark. {61}
Philip, men of Athens, had a great advantage in his favour. For in the
midst of the Hellenic peoples--and not of some only, but of all alike--
there had sprung up a crop of traitors--corrupt, god-forsaken men--more
numerous than they have ever been within the memory of man. These he took
to help and co-operate with him; and great as the mutual ill-will and
dissensions of the Hellenes already were, he rendered them even worse, by
deceiving some, making presents to others, and corrupting others in every
way; and at a time when all had in reality but one interest--to prevent
his becoming powerful--he divided them into a number of factions. {62} All
the Hellenes then being in this condition, still ignorant of the growing
and accumulating evil, you have to ask yourselves, men of Athens, what
policy and action it was fitting for the city to choose, and to hold me
responsible for this; for the person who assumed that responsibility in
the State was myself. {63} Should she, Aeschines, have sacrificed her
pride and her own dignity? Should she have joined the ranks of the
Thessalians and Dolopes,[n] and helped Philip to acquire the empire of
Hellas, cancelling thereby the noble and righteous deeds of our
forefathers? Or, if she should not have done this (for it would have been
in very truth an atrocious thing), should she have looked on, while all
that she saw would happen, if no one prevented it--all that she realized,
it seems, at a distance--was actually taking place? {64} Nay, I should be
glad to ask to-day the severest critic of my actions, which party he would
have desired the city to join--the party which shares the responsibility
for the misery and disgrace which has fallen upon the Hellenes (the party
of the Thessalians and their supporters, one may call it), or the party
which looked on while these calamities were taking place, in the hope of
gaining some advantage for themselves--in which we should place the
Arcadians and Messenians and Argives. {65} But even of these, many--nay,
all--have in the end fared worse than we. For if Philip had departed
immediately after his victory, and gone his way; if afterwards he had
remained at peace, and had given no trouble whatever to any of his own
allies or of the other Hellenes; then there would have been some ground
for blaming and accusing those who had opposed his plans. But if he has
stripped them all alike of their dignity, their paramountcy, and their
independence--nay, even of their free constitutions,[n] wherever he could
do so--can it be denied that the policy which you adopted on my advice was
the most glorious policy possible?

{66} But I return to my former point. What was it fitting for the city to
do, Aeschines, when she saw Philip establishing for himself a despotic
sway over the Hellenes? What language should have been used, what measures
proposed, by the adviser of the people at Athens (for that it was at
Athens makes the utmost difference), when I knew that from the very first,
up to the day when I myself ascended the platform, my country had always
contended for pre-eminence, honour, and glory, and in the cause of honour,
and for the interests of all, had sacrificed more money and lives than any
other Hellenic people had spent for their private ends: {67} when I saw
that Philip himself, with whom our conflict lay, for the sake of empire
and absolute power, had had his eye knocked out, his collar-bone broken,
his hand and his leg maimed, and was ready to resign any part of his body